Movie Make-out

Kevin Smith hasn’t directed any films that he hasn’t written himself, and perhaps there’s a reason for that. However, he took that chance and some of the results could be seen before Sherlock Holmes over the weekend:

Of course, true Smith fans know that Cop Out had been going by a different title all throughout filming, and Smith explained to Entertainment Weekly why the movie isn’t called A Couple of Dicks:

[What] I had gone through with Zack and Miri Make a Porno—”porno” had become very problematic, it became tough for us to advertise [the film], blah blah blah. Warner Bros. decided, “Hey man, we’ll call the networks and see if we’re going to get any problems [with A Couple of Dicks as a title], months before the movie’s ever going to come out.” The top 3 networks—CBS, ABC, NBC—said we can’t run one of your spots before 9 o’clock.

Smith goes on to say that it was a quick decision on everyone’s part because of the Holmes trailer opportunity and that he’s somewhat pleased by the meta aspect of the name. I will admit that I also thought the same thing when I first saw the trailer: that doing this movie is a complete and total cop out for Smith.

Cop Out will be released in the U.S. on February 26, 2010.

Ever since the end of the Screen Actors Guild strike in June and the end of the Writer’s Guild strike in February 2008, there’s one thing that’s been on my mind: If the the newness of the Internet is both the reason why it’s hard to calculate royalties for writers and actors and the only way people are watching movies these days, then why is it that Internet-distributed releases haven’t fared well enough for the studios to take notice?

Jack Selby, a former senior vice president at PayPal, hopes to see a change in all of that because according to Variety, he and producer Duncan Montgomery along with writer-director Tiller Russell are teaming up to film and release digital productions via their new production house, Horsethief Pictures.

The first movie on their slate is called The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, and it stars Scott Speedman as Pride and Lizzy Caplan as his lover Juliette Flowers, with Dwight Yoakam, Jason Priestly, Kris Kristofferson, and Peter Dinklage in supporting roles. Horsethief plans to not only release the movie on the Internet next spring, they’re also planning an Internet assault via all the usual social networking systems and viral interactive games as well as a talent outreach and movie blog outreach.

Just like how the marketing folks at Focus Features chose 50 lucky bloggers to receive props from the Coraline movie, Horsethief has already begun its Internet assault by handing over an exclusive clip to the gang at FilmSchoolRejects.com. The write-up by Neil Miller also goes more into depth about Horsethief’s endeavors:

They’ve already started a viral campaign at WhoKilledtheDwarf.com, a website dedicated to the character of The Dwarf, played by Peter Dinklage. [Ed. note: Spoiler, much?] They will also be reaching out to fans via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, including having the actors reach out directly.

But that’s not all. There are also these two very interesting (and somewhat dangerous) bits of interactivity:

• Horsethief is launching a unique songwriting contest, where fans can submit their own original songs. Fans will vote and select the winner and the announcement will be made by Grammy winning American singer-songwriter and star of The Last Rites of Ransom Pride Dwight Yoakam. The winner will have their song placed in the official movie trailer.
• Horsethief has kicked off a comic book creation contest, where fans can submit their ideas for the comic book based on the script, the winner will be chosen by Ben Edlund, writer of “The Tick” and will receive a first look deal with Horsethief Pictures.

Miller’s a little skeptical of how all the interactive stuff is going to turn out, but I’m a little more optimistic because I personally know a few talented songwriters and comics writers who might be able to bang out a quick pitch or demo over a weekend at very little loss of time to them.

Anyway, I’m definitely eager to see if anything comes of this because if it does… it’s definitely going to help change the way movies get made and people get paid out of them.

Okay, so you know that 21 Jump Street movie that Jonah Hill is heading up? No? Dude that’s old news. Well, anyway, there is one, and it was written by Jonah Hill and Mike Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Hill swears it’s not a spoof (“we’re doing a full-on action movie, blowing sh** up”), and that they’re going for an R rating. Seriously, I’m not making this up.

Well, anyway, today, Variety has revealed that Phil Lord and Chris Miller – the co-creators of MTV’s short-lived but brilliant Clone High, one-time How I Met Your Mother producers, as well as the writers and directors of a recent animated hit you might have heard of called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs are “in negotiations” to direct the film.

As always, take that “in negotiations” line to heart. This shit ain’t real until the ink is dry. But would it make me ten times more likely to see the 21 Jump Street movie? Shit yeah, it would.

IMDB has it down for 2012, but there’s no planned release date for this, either, so don’t start holding your breath yet. This could get fast-tracked, or it could just sit on a shelft somewhere, waiting to get a greenlight. Sometimes I get the feeling Hollywood just announces shit like this so they can watch the internet reaction to gauge interest.

Apparently the thing to do these days is that when you have a movie premiere, you hire some telegenic actors to interview people on your red carpet and stream it live via Ustream for your official MySpace page.

That’s just the thing that the folks in the Avatar marketing department did for the movie premiere last night, and it was one of the crew members at Flickchart.com who was paying attention to the feed whose ears perked up during director Bryan Singer’s interview when he mentioned that he’d signed a deal to direct the next X-Men Origins film.

To view the interview for yourself, check out the below, fast-forwarding to where the pin is stuck in the middle of the slider bar:

UPDATE: Fox has since confirmed Singer’s signing and has also announced that screenwriter Jamie Moss (Street Kings, Ghost in the Shell) has been brought on for a “back to the drawing board” rewrite, as THR put it.

The 1997 live-action version of The Borrowers wasn’t terrible or anything, but it wasn’t all that hot, either — so, fans of Mary Norton’s 1952 children’s novel and its sequels might be excited to learn that Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea) has taken the reigns of a new, animated adaptation, to be directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.

There’s already an official website, if you can read Japanese (which I can’t), although Variety notes that the literal Japanese title is “Arrietty Borrows Everything.”

The new film hits Japanese theaters in Summer 2010, and will likely find its way to American theaters sometime thereafter.